AS AMBASSADOR TO GEKMANY-1897-1903 147 

 see nothing but the scum on the surface of the pot ; nothing 

 but the worst things thrown to the surface in the ebullition 

 of American life. Or they may be compared to people who 

 with a Persian carpet before them, persist in looking at 

 its seamy side, and finding nothing but odds and ends, im 

 perfect joints, unsatisfactory combinations of color- the 

 real pattern entirely escaping them. The shrill utterances 

 of such men rise above the low hum of steady good work, 

 and are taken in Germany as exact statements of the main 

 facts in our national life. 



Let me repeat here one example which I have given 

 more than once elsewhere. Several years since, an effort 

 was made to impeach the President of the United States 

 The current was strong, and most party leaders thought it 

 best to go with it. Three senators of the United States 

 sturdily refused, their leader being William Pitt Fessen- 

 den of Maine, who, believing the impeachment an attempt 

 to introduce Spanish-American politics into our country 

 resolutely opposed it. The State convention of his party 

 called upon him to vote for it, the national convention of 

 the party took the same ground, his relatives and friends 

 besought him to yield, but he stood firmly against the 

 measure, and finally, by his example and his vote, defeated 

 it. It was an example of Spartan fortitude, of Roman 

 heroism, worthy to be chronicled by Plutarch. How was 

 t chronicled? I happened to be traveling in Germany at 

 the time, and naturally watched closely for the result of 

 the impeachment proceedings. One morning I took up a 

 German paper containing the news and read, &quot;The im 

 peachment has been defeated; three senators were 

 bribed,- and at the head of the list of bribed senators 

 was the name of Fessenden! The time will come when 

 his statue will commemorate his great example; let us 

 hope that the time will also come when party spirit will 

 not be allowed to disgrace our country by sending out to 

 the world such monstrous calumnies. 



As to attacks upon the United States, it is only fair to 

 say that German publicists and newspaper writers were 



